‘It’s not a practice ground, it’s an international game’ – Rohit Sharma not looking at Sri Lanka ODIs as Champions Trophy practice

Rohit Sharma. (Source – Sony Sports)

There were doubts whether senior cricketers like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul will feature in the three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka. However, the new management under Gautam Gambhir decided to call up the players keeping the upcoming Champions Trophy in mind. Notably, India are scheduled to play only six ODIs leading to the tournament and the management wants to use this time to build a good squad. 

Ahead of the commencement of the series, captain Rohit Sharma clarified that there are things that the team wants to try but by no means are they considering the series to be a practice for the Champions Trophy. The 37-year-old spoke on the importance of international cricket and made it clear that the quality of cricket won’t be compromised. 

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“See, we get asked questions like these a lot. The World Cup is coming, is this preparation for the World Cup? The Champions Trophy is coming, is this preparation for the Champions Trophy? See, it’s not a practice ground. It’s still an international game. We will keep in our mind what we would like to achieve as a team but this is by no means preparation or practice or anything like that. We want to come here and play good cricket and get something out of the series, it is as simple as that,” Rohit said in the pre-match press conference. 

“Of course we want to try everything possible, but when you’re representing the nation the quality of cricket should remain the way it is, and how we’ve played over the last few years. That is more important, rather than thinking about it as a preparation and saying let’s go out and chill in Colombo. We don’t think like that.

“When we play a series and when we play a game, we want to get something out of that. We might tell a bowler: ‘We want something different from you.’ We might tell a batter: ‘This is how we want you to play in the middle overs.’ We want to get something out of the series, but not at the cost of going out there and having no intent or purpose. For me, the standard of Indian cricket is more important,” he added.

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As per team composition, there won’t be any surprises as things stand. There are doubts between KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant and the team management is likely to take a call on the matchday. When it comes to the bowling unit, Harshit Rana may have to wait for an opportunity as Arshdeep Singh is likely to pair with Mohammed Siraj and Khaleel Ahmed.